Monthly Archives: November 2010

Here is the fact about tie down, they probably are talking about totally different things depends on the context, for instance, ratchet straps for truck are definitely two inches and ten thousand lbs tie down while ratchets for pick up will be 1” and 500 lbs tie down, we’re only going to discuss about truck tie downs here, more precisely, we will talk about flat beds only, usually you will be able to see those trucks on high way.

When the jobs come your way, odds are you won’t be able to decide what kind of cargo will be put on your truck, the only thing you can do is to prepare for all the opportunities , it’s almost always not for you to decide what stuff will be on your trailer . Talking about flat bed trucks, quite some of the flatbeds come with winches installed, or you can install by yourself at a later time, then you can use winch strap to do the job without the hassle of having to tie down both ends of the ratchet strap.

Traditionally slide in winch and truck winch strap are most popular tie down devices for flat beds . There is one thing required for truck winch and winch strap tie down combination, winch bar, which is the tool to help you tie down the cargo on the flatbed, since you can only tighten the winch straps through turning winch barrel, this only can be done by utilizing winch bars.

Some flat beds come with winches installed, not all trailers have winches installed. When the trailer have the winches installed, we can use winch straps to tie down loads on the trailer , usually we tie down steel coils, concrete pipes, skids, anything that not too heavy for the 5400lbs working load limit. Both flat hooks and wire hooks may be used on 2”, 3” and 4” winch straps, but flat hooks are more popular than wire hooks, you may see flat hooks on all size winch straps while wire hooks mostly on 2” straps. Truck winches come in with two different flavors, two inches and 4 inches wide , but winch straps have width of 2”, 3” and 4”, it’s obvious you can put 3” winch straps in 4” winches, when we look at the length of the winch strap, the range is pretty wide for regular use, from around 20 feet to more than 60 feet, 27′ and 30′ being the most common length available.

Of course we just can’t leave out the most used tie down equipment for transportation businesses, ratchet strap. In fact that the ratchet straps are just the assembly of ratchet buckles and tie down webbing, which can be nylon or polyester, the combination of different ratchet buckles and different straps gives us many choices.

The ratchet tie down earned it’s popularity by being the most flexible, adaptable and capable tie down devices , from sedans to eighteen wheelers , you can see ratchet straps anywhere cargo needs to be secured. With flat hooks, wire hooks, cloth loops, chain anchors, even endless, ratchets just can’t have enough variety, how can we don’t love these ratchets? The smallest width for ratchets is 1”, 4” is the widest, while the length of ratchets may be anything from inches to more than 60 feet. The reason we say that ratchet straps are most popular tie down devices for most trucks can be found in this paragraph, even for flatbeds which use winch straps massively may find ratchet straps attractive if there are no winches installed on the truck.

Before you go out or get online to get these tie down straps , you should learn how to get more out of it while spend less , most important thing is the quality of the straps, maybe you know the local store stuff quality, when talking about websites you need to find out by reading other people’s the reviews, trucking blogs, such as trucker’s deal , customer feed backs, or by some other venues to determine whether the products and services are worth the salt.